Wests Tigers pack aim to make Darcy Lussick's Easter a nightmare

Daniel Lane

Powerful Wests Tigers forwards Keith Galloway and Martin Taupau warned the pack that had bullied the likes of Manly's Jason King, the Burgess brothers from Souths and North Queensland's Test props Matt Scott and James Tamou they planned to make Easter Monday miserable for Parramatta enforcer Darcy Lussick.

Lussick, who will return to action after a four-week suspension for his swinging arm on Sydney Roosters forward Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, was viewed by the Wests Tigers duo as an opponent they needed to stop and Galloway even invited him to bring his aggression to ANZ Stadium.

"If it's on, it's on," Galloway said when Lussick's ability to dominate opposing packs was raised by the media on Tuesday. "It's a physical game, there's blokes like that in every club and we just have to match that – and take it to him."

Taupau, who admitted he'd watched a lot of Parramatta on television this season to watch their forwards, did not blink when quizzed what he expected from Lussick.

"Not much ... just run the ball," he said. "We're a pretty good defensive team, I reckon. We'll just wait for them to run at us and we'll dominate their ruck."

Lussick, 24, said he was well aware the Tigers pack – boosted by Galloway, Taupau, James Gavet, Adam Blair and Aaron Woods – had talked themselves up this year but he duly noted that they'd so far delivered on their word.

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"They're confident, I guess that's one thing they are," Lussick said. "The thing is they're talking a big game but they're also taking it onto the field, so you can't knock them for that."

"It's a test for our forward pack and I guess some of us should take it as a personal test as well. [They] probably have some of the form forwards in the competition."

Taupau said while Wests might be regarded as a team unafraid to back themselves, he stressed they were not arrogant.

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"If you talk the talk, you've got to walk the walk, and that's what we've been doing," he said. "You don't want to get over-confident; there's a big difference between confident and cocky. I think we're being confident and we're backing it up."

Lussick, a former Manly forward, conceded while the Waerea-Hargreaves tackle was a result of poor technique, he had no intention to tone down his full-bore approach.

"I worked on my technique the last four weeks," he said. "I've had plenty of time to work on it but I'm not really going to change too much."

While Parramatta and Wests Tigers have defied the pre-season expectations of many experts by flying high on the premiership ladder, Lussick made it clear that the Eels were just as tight-knit a unit during last year's wooden spoon season.

"It's always good winning games," he said. "We had a long year last year but the main thing is we all stuck together, we all got through it. But it's a nice change to be winning."

Taupau said the Tigers were not a team waiting for the bubble to burst.

"I think we can keep improving, that's what we've been doing," he said. "We don't really think about when the next loss is going to happen – we're just thinking about the positives and how to get better.

"At the start of the year everyone wrote us off, both clubs, but I think we've used that as motivation and come away with four wins," he said.